Mid Week Tease - The Bone Flute - Inheritance

Welcome to the Weird, the Wild, & the Wicked for a new year of Mid Week Tease hosted by Sandra Bunino.

Authors: this is a great opportunity to spotlight a few lines or even a paragraph or two from a new release or backlisted title. Readers: you get to sample some delicious snippets! We’ll do our best to tease, titillate and tantalize you into the weekend.

I'm working on a new paranormal romantic suspense set in Las Vegas, entitled The Bone Flute. In this unedited snippet, Rain Szep is the resident paleontologist for the Bureau of Land Management in Las Vegas. She's just found out her paternal grandmother has died and left her a fortune. With a catch.

“When did she die?” Rain asked lamely.

“Three weeks ago,” Mr. Stienmeyer replied without elaborating. “At the reading of her will, it was stipulated that her three grandchildren from her first son Reginald Szép each receive a small trust fund of fifty thousand–”

Rain choked. “Dollars?”

“Yes, dollars, only to be awarded after the occasion of legitimate marriage,” he went on with a little frown at her interruption. “In addition to your monetary inheritance, your grandmother also handed down this antique wooden box and its contents to you because, and I quote, ‘She’ll know what to do with the damn thing and she’s into that sort of stuff.’”

Rain couldn’t imagine what her grandmother was talking about since she’d never met her as an adult. Grandmother Szép had decidedly not been part of their lives, even as children. Rain glanced at the box and tried to figure out the cryptic message as Mr. Stienmeyer opened his briefcase and pulled out some papers. He set them on the table and indicated where she needed to sign for her inheritance. Considering she wasn’t likely to get married anytime soon, it wasn’t much.

He gathered the papers and put them back into his briefcase, promising to send her copies for her records. Then he shook her hand and walked out of the Public Room, leaving her alone with the big table and the stained wooden box.

Clara Newton, the main Public Room greeter, walked up next to Rain and peered down her flared nose at the box on the table. Her full lips pursed and a small line appeared between her chocolate brown eyes as she cocked her head to one side.

“Did I hear that right? You get fifty grand if you get married? Otherwise, all you get from your granny is this box?” she scoffed with sympathetic surprise.

“Sounds like it,” Rain agreed as she looked at the older black woman.

“What’s in it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, open it, honey. You got my curiosity up.”

Rain turned the box and looked at the seam between the lid and the base. There were three ornate latches; two on the ends and one in the middle of the long side opposite the hinges. They opened easily with a flick of her fingers and she lifted the lid.

Inside the box, nestled in faded red satin, lay what looked like a flute. It was longer than her thigh from hip to knee and had eight air holes carved in regular intervals down its length. Intricate scrolling designs resembling an ancient language etched the shaft between the air holes, disappearing around the back of the flute hidden in the satin. The ‘mouth-piece’ of the flute showed where material had been removed and the barrel twisted along its length.

Rain recognized the material as bone immediately and unease flitted up her spine. Dear God, is that a human femur?

“Wow,” Clara breathed.

“Yeah.”

“Is that a flute?”

“Yes, I think so.”

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